Heavy workload for public investment disbursement to the year-end

A public invested road project in Long An Province. The Government’s goal of disbursing at least 95 per cent of allocated public investment this year seems to be beyond reach. — VNA/VNS Photo Minh Hưng

HÀ NỘI — Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyễn Chí Dũng has sent an Official Dispatch to relevant ministries and agencies asking for hastened efforts to speed up the disbursement of public investment in the remaining months of this year amid disappointing results in January – October.

Updated statistics showed that more than VNĐ401.8 trillion (nearly US$17 billion) worth of public investment was disbursed as of October 21, or 56.75 per cent of the Government’s plan.

Forty-one ministries and central level agencies together with 24 localities had disbursement rates below the country’s average.

There are only two months left until the end of this year while the public investment sum to be disbursed amounts around VNĐ300 trillion.

The workload is heavy in the last two months this year to fulfil the target of public investment, Deputy Director of the Investment Department Lê Tuấn Anh under the Ministry of Finance said.

“The Government’s goal of disbursing at least 95 per cent of allocated public investment this year seems to be beyond reach,” he said.

To speed up the public disbursement, the finance ministry said that drastic measures must be raised to remove bottlenecks in the implementation of public-invested projects, especially in site clearance, investment procedures and shortage of building materials for several products in the Cửu Long (Mekong) River Delta.

Especially, the lack of accountability is one of the major causes for the stagnation in the implementation of public-invested projects, he said.

He said that the transfer of capital from projects with slow disbursement to projects with good disbursement rates must be completed quickly.

The reasons and responsibilities in projects proposed to extend implementation and disbursement into the following year must be clarified in order to increase the efficiency of state budget capital use, he said.

Hastened efforts

Localities are accelerating public investment disbursement, but the target of 95 per cent disbursement rate is challenging to many.

The finance ministry’s statistics showed that 15 ministries and central level agencies report disbursement rates below 10 per cent, and 4 localities below 30 per cent.

HCM City, for example, reported a disbursement rate of 35 per cent in the first 10 months of this year.

Still, the southern city is determined to meet the target of 95 per cent disbursement rate this year.

Lê Thị Huỳnh Mai, Director of HCM City Department of Planning and Investment, said that the city must disburse nearly VNĐ44 trillion by the end of December, a huge pressure in the last two months of this year.

Earlier this month, the municipal People’s Committee launched a 60-day emulation to push the effort to fulfil the public investment disbursement goal.

“The municipal authorities will drastically implement solutions in the remaining months of 2023 to achieve the disbursement target,” Phan Văn Mãi, Chairman of HCM City People’s Committee, said. “If the disbursement rate of 95 per cent cannot be achieved, it cannot be lower than 80 per cent,” he said.

The city’s statistics showed that 79 projects are in stagnation due to problems in site clearance, which blocked the disbursement around VNĐ10.8 trillion. To date, only VNĐ2 trillion has been disbursed and another VNĐ3 trillion is expected to be disbursed by the year end, leaving around VNĐ5.6 trillion unspent.

Another 28 projects are under slow implementation with the fault in investors, expecting a disbursed sum of VNĐ1.6 trillion by the year end, while the allocated sum was more than VNĐ2.4 trillion.

Sixteen projects faced problems in coordination among relevant departments and agencies, expecting a disbursed sum of VNĐ358 billion till the year end, while the plan was VNĐ666 billion.

Đinh Trọng Thịnh from the Academy of Finance said that accelerating the disbursement of public investment requires drastic effort and coordination of the Government, ministries and localities, together with determination for synchronous and comprehensive measures.